Speed skater set for Winter Youth Olympics (From Your Local Guardian)

Speed skater set for Winter Youth Olympics

10:23am Thursday 5th January 2012 in Local Sports Round-up By Graham Moody

When Big Ben chimed for the first time on New Year's Day, a collective chill ran through Great Britain's perspective Olympians.

The year of the London Games had finally arrived but, while those athletes have almost seven months to wait for their opening ceremony, one young speed skater from Worcester Park has only eight days to go until his.

Aydin Djemal has been selected to represent Britain at the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics Games in Innsbruck, Austria, from next Friday and will be competing in the 500m, 1000m and relay.

He has been to European Championships before but this will be the first time he comes up against the world's best and he is looking forward to the challenge.

"This is the first time I will be racing Koreans and Canadians like this - I have done European competitions but nothing this big," said the 15-year-old.

"It will be good because they are the world champions and it will be great to compare myself to them and see where I am.

"I am looking forward to it and really I have to aim for gold and at the least try and get on the podium.

"It is a little taste for what I want to achieve in the senior Olympics in the future."

Djemal is a member of Aldwych Speed Skating Club and trains five times a week on the ice rink at Spectrum Leisure Complex in Guildford, mixing skating with his first year GCSE studies at Blenheim High School.

He warmed up for the next week's event by coming second overall in the Junior British Open last week and is setting his sights on making the senior British squad once he turns 16 later this year.

"The British Open was alright," he said.

"It didn't go too well in the 1000m, I got the wrong tactics and came fourth but I came second in the 500m and progressed to the super final in which I also came second so I got third overall.

"I have been skating for six years now and want to try to get in the senior British squad for which you have to be 16 years old.

"But I am quite busy in year 10 at school so it is hard to train and revise."